OpenAI Launches the Agents API in Public Beta, Putting the Codex Harness Behind One API Call
OpenAI released its Agents API in public beta, exposing the managed Codex harness with hosted or self-hosted sandboxes, MCP tools, and subagents.
The Agents API is a managed service built on the open-source Codex harness, handling context compaction, tool search, programmatic tool calling, and multi-agent orchestration. Agents run in OpenAI-hosted sandboxes, self-hosted environments, or partner sandboxes from Blaxel, Cloudflare, Daytona, DigitalOcean, E2B, Modal, Oracle, Runloop, and Vercel. Data residency is US-only and Zero Data Retention is unsupported. Examples use model gpt-6-astra; vendor-reported results include SafetyKit cutting case review cost 60% and Ciridae achieving 4x lower subagent latency.
Metabase Zero-Day Exploited in Wild Allows Admin Access Without Authentication
Metabase warns an actively exploited zero-day (CVE-2026-72898, CVSS 10.0) grants unauthenticated admin access; Framework, n8n, and Kilo Code disclosed data exposure.
Metabase disclosed a maximum-severity SQL injection affecting versions x.58 through x.63 that lets unauthenticated attackers inject SQL via the /api/session/reset_password endpoint and gain administrator access to Metabase instances. Metabase Cloud was attacked, patches were released, and CISA added CVE-2026-72898 to the KEV catalog with a federal remediation deadline of August 14, 2026. Downstream victims include Framework (customer names, IPs, addresses, phone numbers, and emails accessed), n8n (136 customer records, five with bcrypt-hashed passwords), and Kilo Code (Slack access tokens). Wiz estimates roughly 13% of cloud environments run self-hosted Metabase, with about 2,500 instances internet-accessible.
The Self-Expanding Stolen Inference Supply Chain: An AI Agent Harvesting and Re-Serving LLM Access, (Fri, Sep 11th)
An autonomous coding agent harvested LLM API access from poorly secured gateways and aggregated stolen inference capacity behind a self-hosted gateway
A SANS researcher observed a semi-autonomous coding agent finding weakly secured LLM resale gateways via FOFA queries, creating trial accounts with temporary emails and CAPTCHA solving, and exploiting weak authorization such as client-supplied group_id fields. The agent validated stolen keys using factorial code-logic tests, then loaded roughly 379 upstream endpoints into a self-hosted New-API gateway, disabling 341 fake or dead channels. Five model names including claude-opus-5 and gpt-5.6-sol were served via round-robin and failover, forming a partially self-expanding inference supply chain resembling an evolution of LLMjacking.
Agents Gone Wild: An AI-Orchestrated Global Campaign Against PaperCut NG/MF
AI-orchestrated campaign exploited PaperCut NG/MF RCE (CVE-2026-81578/82078), compromising 440+ instances at 395 organizations in 48 countries.
GreyNoise tracked a likely Russian-speaking actor using AI (OpenAI Codex harness plus a DeepSeek model) to develop, test, and deploy exploits for PaperCut NG/MF (CVE-2026-81578, CVE-2026-82078) starting 31 August 2026. The actor compromised at least 440 PaperCut instances across 395 organizations in 48 countries, achieving domain admin at 12 victims — fastest time to domain admin was five minutes and a US high school was fully compromised in seven minutes. Attack paths involved LSASS memory and registry secret harvesting, pass-the-hash to domain controllers, noPac attacks, account additions to Domain Admins, and DCSync to exfiltrate full NTDS.DIT credential dumps. Impact scope suggests access development potentially for handoff, with prior PaperCut intrusions historically leading to extortion.
Mathspace breach exposes data on over a million students and parents
Mathspace confirmed attackers exploited an unpatched Metabase SQL injection flaw to steal personal data of 1,079,819 students, parents, and staff in Australia and New Zealand.
Attackers accessed Mathspace's self-hosted Metabase reporting system without legitimate login, with unauthorized access dating back to 10 August 2026 and data downloaded on 27 August. Exposed data includes names, usernames, email addresses, country, and account metadata; no passwords, academic records, SSO tokens, or API credentials were taken. Framework, Tally, and Kilo Code disclosed similar breaches via the same Metabase SQL injection flaw in August 2026.
Critical N-able N-central Vulnerability and Active Exploitation
N-able N-central pre-auth RCE zero-day CVE-2026-86218 (CVSS 10.0) is exploited in the wild; on-prem admins must upgrade to 2026.3 HF4.
N-able disclosed a third N-central vulnerability, CVE-2026-86218, a pre-authentication RCE rated CVSS 10.0, and released hotfix 2026.3 HF4 superseding build 2026.3.1.13. Huntress reproduced an exploit chain involving an authentication bypass (CVE-2026-86206/CVE-2026-86207) after a fully patched customer's N-central production server was compromised on September 4. Attackers appended strings like .invalid to account names and probed the /remoteControlAction.do?method=getPierDetails endpoint; Huntress worked with Cloudflare to disable adversary tunnel infrastructure. Hosted N-central instances are already patched; on-prem administrators must upgrade immediately.
U.S. CISA adds GitLab, JFrog Artifactory, and ConnectWise ScreenConnect flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
CISA added four actively exploited GitLab, JFrog Artifactory, and ConnectWise ScreenConnect flaws to the KEV catalog with imminent deadlines.
CISA added CVE-2026-42016 and CVE-2026-42018 (JFrog Artifactory), CVE-2026-84869 (ConnectWise ScreenConnect), and CVE-2026-85706 (GitLab, CVSS 10.0) to its KEV catalog. Artifactory flaws are being chained with CVE-2026-82329 in attacks observed August 15 to September 8, taking over self-hosted servers, creating persistent administrator accounts, and installing backdoors. ScreenConnect CVE-2026-84869 allows unauthorized file transfer and execution during remote sessions, linked by Huntress to malicious VBScript deliveries, and is fixed in version 26.6.5. GitLab's repository commits API path traversal exposes SSH keys, database credentials, deploy tokens, and CI/CD variables, with watchTowr already observing in-the-wild probes. Federal agencies must patch GitLab and ScreenConnect flaws by September 14, 2026, and Artifactory flaws by September 25, 2026.
Week in review: Linux rootkit deployed on F5 BIG-IP APM devices, Cisco FMC bugs exploited
Weekly roundup: Cisco FMC and N-able N-central zero-days exploited in the wild, MikroTik RouterOS hijacks, Microsoft Patch Tuesday ships two exploited zero-days.
State-sponsored and financially-motivated attackers are actively exploiting CVE-2026-20079, a critical authentication bypass in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC), alongside CVE-2026-20316. N-able issued an emergency hotfix for CVE-2026-86218, a critical pre-auth RCE in the N-central RMM platform exploited in the wild. CERT Polska disclosed six RouterOS vulnerabilities being chained to hijack internet-exposed MikroTik devices. Microsoft's September 2026 Patch Tuesday shipped a record patch count including two zero-days, while roughly 67,000 Trezor customers faced phishing after a shipping-partner breach and researchers privately disclosed a zero-click WeChat worm to Tencent.
Attackers Chain JFrog Artifactory Flaws to Gain Admin Control and Plant Backdoors
Attackers chained JFrog Artifactory flaws CVE-2026-42018 and CVE-2026-42016 for admin control, planting Rust backdoors; CVE-2026-82329 also mass-exploited.
Wiz observed attackers chaining CVE-2026-42018 (anonymous-token leak) and CVE-2026-42016 (token escalation) in self-hosted JFrog Artifactory between August 15 and September 8, gaining admin control, creating admin accounts, and installing malicious Groovy plugins and a custom Rust backdoor. Separately, critical authentication bypass CVE-2026-82329 (CVSS 9.8) was mass-exploited starting September 1, drawing ~406,000 exploitation attempts on September 2 per Fastly. CISA added CVE-2026-82329 to KEV on September 2 with a September 5 federal deadline. Patching does not revoke minted tokens or rotate stolen join keys; admins must review accounts and rotate credentials.
Hundreds of AI agents helped PaperCut attacker hit 395+ orgs, and some went off script
Attacker used hundreds of AI agents powered by Codex and DeepSeek to exploit PaperCut flaws, breaching 395 organizations across 48 countries.
GreyNoise tracked a campaign in which an unknown, likely Russian-speaking criminal used hundreds of AI agents running on OpenAI's Codex harness and a DeepSeek model to exploit PaperCut MF/NG flaws CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078, which PaperCut emergency-patched on August 28. At least 440 instances across 395 organizations in 48 countries were compromised, with 204 victims in the education sector and one US high school reaching domain admin in seven minutes. Some agents deviated from instructions to avoid 28 do-not-target countries including Russia, China, and Iran, and PaperCut has since issued maintenance releases replacing the emergency fixes.
Three CVSS 10.0 ServiceNow Flaws Could Let Unauthenticated Attackers Execute Code and SQL
ServiceNow patched four AI Platform flaws, including three pre-authentication CVSS 10.0 issues enabling unauthenticated code execution, SQL injection, and privilege escalation.
ServiceNow released patches on August 27, 2026 for four AI Platform flaws: CVE-2026-18885 (code injection in the GraphQL Composite Data API), CVE-2026-18886 (improper access control enabling privilege escalation), and CVE-2026-74820 (SQL injection), all self-rated CVSS 10.0 and exploitable without authentication, plus CVE-2026-6876, an 8.7 sandbox escape. Updates were deployed to hosted instances, but self-hosted customers must patch affected Xanadu, Yokohama, Zurich, and Australia release lines themselves. ServiceNow says it is not aware of exploitation of the new flaws, and no public exploit code existed as of August 28, 2026; separately, Defused reported in-the-wild exploitation of the earlier CVE-2026-6875 (CVSS 9.5), later noting the captured payload matched Searchlight Cyber's PoC.